“Never let the past hold you back.”
Born in Dallas, Texas, Josh Butler played football at West Mesquite High School.
He became a starter as a junior and evolved into one of the nation’s top cornerback prospects.
Ranked 25th by Rivals and 28th by ESPN, there was no shortage of interest from college scouts.
However, issues at home narrowed his choices.
Butler’s parents split up. Things got so bad that he jumped between living with friends and relatives.
His paternal grandmother had died and his dad was spiraling.
As his senior year approached, Josh decided to attend college far away from home.
Not only to escape the issues but to reach his full potential.
He saw too many friends stick around their hometown and, in his view, keep their vision small.
“I didn’t want people to say, ‘Dang, he could have been somebody,'” Josh told ESPN.
His offers included Clemson, Texas A&M, and Washington. But Michigan State captured his attention the most.
During that time, the Spartans program had churned out NFL corners like Darqueze Dennard and Trae Waynes. Josh wanted to be next.
It was also the right distance from home.
For his unofficial visit, Josh took a 49-hour bus trip to East Lansing.
After 1,100 miles alone on a Greyhound bus, he knew Michigan State was the place for him.
“When all the coaches are together, it’s something you just feel,” he said at the time.
“It’s not something you can really explain, but you feel it.”
After taking a redshirt year to beef up, Josh played in every game – mostly on special teams – in 2016.
2017 was going to be his year. He’d worked his way up the depth chart and had a real chance to become a starting corner.
But after starting the first three games of the 2017 season, Josh got banged up.
When he was healthy enough to come back, he got great news: coaches wanted him to start a critical road game at Penn State.
On the morning of the game, though, they received a terrible phone call.
Josh’s dad died of a heart attack at 51 years old.
His old high school coach called the Michigan State staff and told them the best thing would be to wait until after the game to tell Josh.
After a long debate, the MSU coaches agreed it’s what his dad would’ve wanted.
So defensive backs coach Harlon Barnett ran down to the team’s meeting room to try to grab Josh’s phone before anyone could tell him what happened.
When he got there, it was too late.
Josh was in the corner, sobbing, surrounded by his teammates.
Barnett pulled him in for a hug.
“It felt like we hugged for a half hour,” the coach said.
“We just cried. I tried to comfort him. That was one of the toughest days of my coaching career.”
MSU coaches left it up to Josh – he could play that night or sit out.
Josh decided his dad would have wanted him to start the Penn State game.
So he suited up and played most of the first quarter before a lightning storm forced a weather delay.
During the hours of downtime, Josh found himself checking his phone, responding to condolences, and reflecting on life without his father.
The coaches eventually decided to pull him from the game and let him go home.
“I played in his honor that day, then left school to make his funeral arrangements,” Josh wrote.
In the spring of 2019, Josh got word that his mom’s breast cancer had returned.
“She was on hospice and everything. I drove down and spent the rest of my time that I had with her.”
He got home to Dallas in time to see her before she passed away.
It felt beyond cruel. In 17 months, Josh lost both of his parents.
“I most definitely was a boy before. But now, I feel like I’m a grown man,” he said before his senior season.
“I’m just more focused than ever…I just feel like I’ve got a lot more passion, a lot more fight…Everything I want to do, I’ll just put my mind to it and make it happen.”
Every game, Josh wore his dad’s crematory tag on a chain around his neck, not far from a tattoo of a pink ribbon to remember his mother.
His senior season was the best of his college career.
In 13 games, Josh totaled a career-high 25 tackles and tied for second on the team with 5 pass breakups.
On his Senior Day at Michigan State – a day for senior players and their family members to share a moment – Josh made national news.
With both his parents beside him in spirit, Josh was escorted onto the field by his two dogs – Roxy and Remi.
“I just walked with them because I feel like they were with me through all the hard times, all the trauma, and just being there as my support animals…just being there for me throughout my whole college career.”
The moment captured the hearts of all 51,366 fans in attendance and millions more who saw the viral clip online.
“It just feels great to know that someone out there, even though I don’t really know them, really genuinely cares about me and will check up on me.”
One of those people was Eadie Harley, an Underdog Newsletter subscriber.
“Josh was such a nice young man,” she told me.
“My son, granddaughter and I attended the December 2019 Football Bash…[As] we were leaving, I saw Josh walking toward us. I said ‘Hi Josh’ and he threw his arms open and gave me a big hug! He didn’t know me but greeted me like I was family!”
Butler overcame more adversity than almost anyone off the field. Yet he still managed to become a productive college player along the way.
“A lot of times, I wanted to give up,” he wrote. “I battled with depression and started to struggle in football.”
“However, I kept my faith in God and continued to tell myself that I would make my parents proud.”
While he was a valuable college player, the NFL requires another level of production.
When the draft rolled around in the spring of 2020, Josh Butler never heard his name. Even as an undrafted free agent, his phone never rang.
Instead of sitting around and feeling bad for himself, he picked up and moved to Los Angeles.
COVID ruled out most opportunities to keep playing football.
So he started posting on social media, often as a supporting cast member to his now-famous canines, Roxy and Remi.
His following grew – 3.3 million on TikTok and 370K on Instagram – and led to opportunities off the field, like acting and music.
In 2021, he made an appearance on the Netflix show All American. A year later, he released his debut R&B album, The Motive.
“You don’t have to be limited to one thing,” he told CBS Texas. “You have one life, so you might as well enjoy it.”
All the while, he kept putting feelers out to various football leagues.
“I was trying to go to camps,” he said in an interview.
“I tried to do the Fan Controlled league, I tried to go overseas to Germany, I tried to do Mexico, and those opportunities didn’t work out.”
Finally, in early 2023, his phone rang.
“I don’t know why I was up. I was tired, but I was up.”
It was 3 AM in California, but he answered the call from a number he didn’t recognize.
“Josh, this is Steve Kazor from the Michigan Panthers in the USFL. Are you still interested in playing football?”
What were the chances?
Josh didn’t even have an agent at the time. One of the team’s scouts found his highlight tape on Facebook.
“You never know who’s watching,” Josh said later.
He’d waited nearly three years for that call. So he packed his bags, loaded his dogs into his truck, and drove to Detroit.
Josh became an immediate starter and was a key defensive player on a Panthers team that finished second in its division.
The Dallas Cowboys sent a scout to one of their games, and they called Josh after the season.
After his tryout went well, Dallas offered him a practice squad contract.
A few years earlier, he thought his playing days were over. Now he was joining an NFL team.
“Dallas has a lot of tough memories for me,” he said.
“But it also is home. And now I have a chance to make some new, good memories here with the Cowboys.”
He showed out in the 2023 preseason with nine tackles and two pass breakups.
While it wasn’t good enough to make the 53-man roster, he signed a reserve/future contract before being waived in August.
A day later, he returned to their practice squad.
Josh spent a year and a half as a practice squad player before finally getting the call to the active roster in November 2024.
He made his NFL debut on special teams in Week 9 – four and a half years since going undrafted out of college.
After injuries in the Cowboys’ secondary, he made his first start against the Eagles.
Two weeks later, Josh had the game of his life.
He put up 12 total tackles, 3 pass breakups, and a sack against Washington.
“I can’t say enough about Josh Butler,” head coach Mike McCarthy said after the game.
“He’s earned it. He’s had to wait a long time…I’m just happy for him.”
It was exactly what Josh had planned for.
“I had a vision board of everything that I wanted to do,” he said.
“I had a bunch of different sticky notes. Every single day I’d wake up in the morning and I’d look at that, and one of them was sign an NFL contract… just seeing that every day, having that motivation.”
The following week, Dallas faced off against the Giants on Thanksgiving Day.
Josh recorded three tackles and one pass breakup before going down with a non-contact injury.
Doctors confirmed he tore his ACL, ending his season just as it was getting started.
It was devastating.
But there is zero doubt that Josh will come back stronger than ever.
He always does.
“It’s a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but it’s always how you look at it. It’s always a perspective,” Josh said.
“There’s a negative side and a positive side. You can definitely go down that negative road and you let it finish you off, or you can always think on that positive side.”
You can follow Josh’s road to recovery on his YouTube channel, JoshButlerTV.
